Ilia Delio, OSF

Those who seek God along the path of Franciscan prayer are to be transformed by the one they seek, the one they claim to love.

Prayer is the energy of evangelical life because it transforms the desire for Gospel life into the practice of Gospel living.

Freedom is the gift of God’s humble love. It is the gift of a God who loves us faithfully despite our failures, always bending low to embrace us in love. God’s love is free because real love always desires the best for the other without interfering or manipulating the other. God is one who neither manipulates nor interferes with our created freedom. Rather, God respects the gift of freedom that he has given us. If God forced us to love him, God would not be perfect love and we would not be free.

Francis and his early followers remind us that it is not place or circumstances that make us free, it is the heart that makes us free when it is turned toward God.

Jesus is God-with-us, the human One who mediates our relationship with God for all eternity. What happened in Jesus, however, must take place in all humanity (and creation)

As God bends low to love us where we are, we must be open to welcome God in our lives, to embrace this God of humble love and to allow God to live in us in every way.